“I Think” vs. “The Thought Tells Me”: What Grammar Teaches Us about the Monastic Self

While languages vary enormously in the way in which thinking is grammaticalized and how it figures in discourse, “think” appears to be a universal linguistic concept. Linguistic interpretations of this basic human activity can thus provide an important source of evidence for uncovering conceptual systems. Accordingly, this paper analyzes linguistic constructions of thinking—the ways in which this state or activity is “semanticized” or construed in language—preserved in the literary evidence of eastern monasticism, in order to uncover early monastic perceptions of the self and how these are formed and employed. Drawing on modern theories in linguistics, I argue that the unique linguistic interpretation of thinking employed by late antique monks was not simply a convenient or expressive way to talk about mental processes, but a way of bringing about a profound shift in understanding of the self as distinct from one’s thoughts. This paper thus points to the important role of language, and especially the grammar, in the formation of the monastic self.